Archive for the 'Savages' Tag Under 'Soundcheck' Category

Funny thing happened when I went to compile my favorite albums of the year – they hadn't really changed much since July, when I sorted out my picks for the best up to that point.

Vampire Weekend and Kanye West and Daft Punk were still vying for the top spot, with nothing in the past six months remotely close to unseating them. A few standouts I wrongly relegated to honorable mentions had risen in my estimation, and a handful of others (Neko Case!) made their merits known only recently. But that didn't mean Eminem or Queens of the Stone Age were going to overthrow, say, My Bloody Valentine's intoxicating first album in 22 years, the downloading of which crashed servers in February.

So rather than lapse into too much regurgitation, I've taken a different approach to summing up. This is not my list of the 20 best albums, though you can find my personal picks at the bottom. Instead, this is the stuff you should have paid attention to in 2013.

Much of it was inescapable. Some of it you'll need to Spotify. All of it was essential listening for anyone who cared to debate the merits of an often profound year in music.

It’s been a year since she played the Palladium, and a little more than that since the arrival of her fourth album – The Idler Wheel …, her first in seven years, widely considered among the very best 2012 had to offer.

So, given how long it takes her to get ’round to creating anything new, it’s a special occasion for fans that Apple will make her debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Oct. 7 in collaboration with fellow singer-songwriter Blake Mills, her opening act from last year’s tour.

Earlier Monday they issued a four-part statement about the outing, which kicks off Oct. 3 in Portland and wraps with two nights at the end of the month at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington D.C.:

The ladies who comprise London quartet Savages are clearly trying to do more than merely revive English post-punk – although their widely acclaimed debut from May, Silence Yourself, essentially achieves just that by exploring primal territory very similar to that traversed at the dawn of the '80s by the likes of Bauhaus, the Psychedelic Furs and, above all, Siouxsie and the Banshees, clearly a key influence on French frontwoman Jehnny Beth's vocal delivery.

But the record is nearly as tight as what those acts concocted in their more seasoned heydays, crafted with explicit intention. Not just sonically, either: the group pushes an experiential artistic philosophy (akin to the politics-at-home spirit of another English forebear, Gang of Four) as much as it conjures raw, feral noise accompanied by almost tribal beats. Note this part of the poetic manifesto on the album's cover: "WE LIVE IN AN AGE OF MANY STIMULATIONS / IF YOU ARE FOCUSED YOU ARE HARDER TO REACH / IF YOU ARE DISTRACTED YOU ARE AVAILABLE."

Those themes certainly extend to their live shows – indeed, they're even more overt. Take, for example, the signage posted in bold lettering outside Wednesday's second of back-to-back shows at L.A.'s El Rey Theatre this week: "Our goal is to discover better ways of living and experiencing music. We believe that the use of phones to film and take pictures ... prevents all of us from totally immersing ourselves."

Then there was Beth's comment toward the end of the show: "Now we have deconstructed everything." Deconstructed what, though? In this context, it seemed they were referring to the idea of live music as pure entertainment. For Savages, as their album title denotes, music is designed to silence the invasive chaos of everyday life – the technological and trivial distractions that occupy the mind – by absorbing one's senses, and in the process "recompose" perspectives using sounds so gloriously abrasive and simultaneously groovy that you can't possibly ignore them.

Maybe you prefer the comfy new Rod Stewart album. I like that one, too. Certainly a step in the right retrenching direction after so many snooze-worthy sets of rasped standards.

Or maybe like me you're a lifelong Bowiephile who cherishes his out-of-nowhere return. I almost included it on this list just for being such a perfectly calculated comeback.

Yet Rod's Time merely reconnects a born rocker to his better self, while Bowie's Berlin-steeped The Next Day, as strong an assortment as its two predecessors a decade ago, nonetheless isn't quite the "twilight masterpiece" so many critics (especially British ones) seem to think it is. Both discs are reassuring, gem-laden proof that legends can be forever capable of greatness, while remaining relevant only to true believers.

When I waste time putting together self-important lists like this midyear roundup of 2013 standouts, I prefer to praise innovations with higher potential for seismic impact. I savor those artists and albums that take us places we haven't been, or at least rarely visit, and the past six months have been brimming with all manner of adventurers.

Let's start with some caveats. Principally: How strong the live stream will be from both Coachella weekends (available on the official site) depends on your equipment as much as the technical competence of festival organizers. Their crews already battle the elements to bring the action home. Don't battle back by having a lousy Internet connection and a shoddy laptop.

Also keep in mind that not everything will air, perhaps including some of these choices. Several top-tier names are apt to deny access.

And don't expect much – or anything – out of the Sahara dance tent. Apparently little was shown from there last year, so we aren't recommending many EDM stars.